About Us
The mission, goals, and who/what/why of the partnership
EASTERN OHIO P-16 PARTNERSHIP FOR EDUCATION
In the spring of 2009, a group of educators, businesspersons, and civic and nonprofit leaders came together to consider a new effort to foster significantly better outcomes for students at each educational level in Ashtabula, Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull Counties, a pre-kindergarten through college or P-16 initiative. Such initiatives have gained national attention and have shown promise for connecting pre-school, elementary, middle, high school, and post-secondary education to create a comprehensive, integrated system of student learning.
Vision:
The four-county region will compete successfully in the global economy by building a culture and climate that will grow, attract, and retain highly skilled, high-wage jobs that result in an enhanced and sustainable quality of life for its citizens. Developing and sustaining an excellent education system is critical to the realization of this vision.
Mission:
The P-16 Partnership is dedicated to developing and implementing a seamless a system of excellent education and inculcating a commitment to lifelong learning that will result in improved outcomes for students and a better quality of life for all.
The Partnership will collaborate with schools; post-secondary and early childhood education providers; business; trade and industry; families; civic organizations; and the community to develop, evaluate, and promote comprehensive and collaborative strategies to foster increased enrollment and graduation rates in both high school and post-secondary education and training.
Goal:
The P-16 Partnership is guided by an overarching goal: to foster post-secondary success and career readiness by creating a seamless system of education that is student-centered, high-performing and continually responsive to community need.
THE P-16 PARTNERSHIP: WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT MUST DO
The P-16 Partnership is a multi-sector, community-based collaboration that guides and supports both the system and process described above. An exploration of the region’s strengths and challenges as well as a review of similar efforts across the nation suggest that the Partnership’s success is dependent on developing certain capacities along with the willingness to undertake specific tasks.
These include:
• Understanding the community – its challenges and its opportunities.
• Convening diverse groups and supporting their collaborative efforts in a common endeavor.
• Surfacing, promoting and helping to implement best education practices.
• Conducting research and fact-finding.
• Collecting, analyzing and utilizing data to monitor interim outcomes and progress toward goals.
• Acting as a clearinghouse for information.
• Raising and helping to allocate resources to support P-16 programs.
• Educating policymakers and others about P-16 and community educational needs, opportunities and best practices.
• Fostering efforts to build public will and public support for P-16 through ongoing communications and outreach.
• Seizing opportunities as they arise.
• Engaging the community in dialogue about the future and the critical role of excellent education in it.
• Collaborating with P-16 groups across the state to impact public policy and state initiatives.
• Celebrating and promoting successes along the way.
